Better than a battery? Big Energy backs hydrogen for power storage

London

THE secret to switching the global energy system entirely to renewables may lie in the universe's most abundant substance.

Hydrogen has drawn backing from big energy companies from Royal Dutch Shell Plc to Uniper SE in addition to carmakers BMW AG and Audi AG. They're supporting research into how the element can be used to store energy for weeks or even months beyond what lithium-ion batteries can manage.

While industry's investment in hydrogen is small at just US$2.5 billion over the last decade, the work offers an answer to the elusive question of how electricity could be kept for use in the future.

Batteries increasingly are shifting power from day to night, but they tend to go flat after a few weeks. Hydrogen can be kept indefinitely in tanks. That would all…